The Hidden Room
by OdetteOdile
Summary: Damon. Elena. Katherine's machinations. Post-Season 1.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Hidden Room

Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me.

Summary: Damon. Elena. Katherine's machinations.

A/N: This contains spoilers for Season 1. Enjoy and review!

Chapter 1

Being a fatalist, when Damon goes to kiss Elena, he is not filled with love or affection, or even desire. He is, instead, filled with dread. As his lips descend on hers, Damon knows the score and has one thought: _Here's to another 150 years of misery._

The kiss is still for a moment and it feels… strange. There is a duplicity there. And, really, why shouldn't there be? Katherine was not completely gone, of course. She couldn't just disappear. But the longing he felt now, it wasn't for her, and despite the fact that he indulges for just a second, when Elena begins to kiss him back, Damon sort of hates her for it. But he can't process that quite yet. _To hell with it_, he thinks._ I give in_.

But then the door opens, and he turns away, exposed. There is judgment in Jenna's voice and Elena… she walks away and into the house. The moment is fast and over in an instant. Damon touches his lips.

He starts to walk home and, at first, he is angry with himself, having proven Stefan right. Damon couldn't hold back. He never does. But then his anger turns toward her.

"Why didn't you just punch me?" he says into the night bitterly. "You should have."

Elena had asked him earlier to stop with all of this. To just be her friend. And in that moment, up on that porch, he had every intention of being just that, but in the end he could only be what he was. Impulsive. Destructive. And Elena will not choose him. He knows that. The realization cuts into him. She kissed him and she will not choose him.

Damon's rediscovered feelings are all dark and twisted now. They overtake him. He feels betrayed. Disillusioned. He is disappointed somehow. The Elena of his mind is not the reality. Is it possible to want to kiss someone so bad it hurts, and yet not want the kiss in return? He thinks her a tease and he turns back toward her house to tell her so. Damon is despondent. It's easier to feel anger and despair than to see the signs. And he wants to blow all this—_them_—to bits.

He runs up the porch, misdirected, on a path of self-sabotage. And is hell-bent too, but then he hears a whimper.

Damon yanks the door open and hears a struggle inside. His speed carries him into the kitchen and the first thing he sees is a pool of blood and John Gilbert facedown on the floor.

"Damon," he hears from the corner of the room.

He turns and his breath catches.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

There they are, the two of them, one standing menacingly over the other. They both look at Damon, and he knows that for the first split second, he can only look into the eyes of one.

"Elena," he says, and Katherine's eyes narrow as she holds Elena down on the kitchen tile by her hair.

"Back so soon," she asks. "One kiss is never enough, is it?"

Elena recoils on the ground in horror. A very terryfing—very wrong—scenario occurs to her.

"Damon, you—you did this?" she sputters as she looks from John to Katherine to him. Tears fall from her eyes. "How could you?"

He bristles. "How could I _what_?" His brow furrows. He's in a surreal nightmare.

Katherine laughs, gleeful. "John wanted you dead tonight and now he's the one… well, knocking on heaven's door I suppose… or is it hell?" She stares down at his body "It's so poetic."

Blood trickles across the floor and Elena shudders. She struggles to get up. Katherine brusquely pushes her down and Damon lunges forward.

"Don't struggle!" he orders.

He is trying to protect her. He'd known Katherine to strike with little provocation. In fact, with none whatsoever. But to Elena, his motives are not so clear.

_He has what he wants now_, she thinks. _Katherine. Is everyone else—am I—collateral damage?_

Katherine raises her free hand to Damon. "Not so fast, darling." She uses that teasing voice she used to have. "Stay," she coos, as if speaking to a dog. She nods to her bag on the kitchen island. "Open it. There is a vial inside. I want you to drink it."

"What?" Damon asks in confusion.

"Drink!" Katherine demands, her voice thicker now, vicious. "Or my little lamb dies." She wraps her hand around the back of Elena's neck. One little snap. That's all it'll take. She squeezes.

"Ugh!" Elena grunts, and starts to realize—too late—that she is wrong.

He steps back immediately, cannot risk it. "What is this? What are you doing?"

"Playing!" Katherine sing-songs. "Have you forgotten? It's what I love to do best."

Damon swallows hard and holds her triumphant gaze the whole time as he digs through her bag and pulls out a bottle. "What are you up to?" he asks suspiciously.

"A surprise," she answers with a nasty grin that turns cold. "Now, drink"

He stares down at the amber liquid—swishes it around. _It's a game. A test. It has to be. Right?_ He visibly flinches.

Katherine smirks. "You don't look pleased. Have you not been waiting for me all these years?"

"You're late," he says darkly and regards the vial once more, regards the unknown.

"Damon… Damon…" Elena pleads.

He looks down into her eyes, wants to seep in.

"Don't be afraid," her murmurs.

Their gaze holds for moment, and then Elena shuts her eyes, tries to hold herself together.

Damon looks at Katherine and then down at John Gilbert. He kneels by him. Not a clean kill. It was messy. Vengeful. "You were careless," he remarks.

Katherine smiles. "Humans are so delicate," she says as she strokes a shaking Elena's hair. "So fragile."

"Don't be afraid, Elena," Damon repeats softly. "Look at me." Her eyes fly open, a pool of her dead father's blood separating them. "Don't be afraid."

"Enough with this kumbaya," Katherine says impatiently.

Damon smiles gently at Elena, and then smirks as he gets up. "We have to talk," he tells Katherine, unscrewing the bottle.

"Maybe," she murmurs, fascinated by how purposely he brings it to his lips. "Maybe not."

He doesn't pause before letting the liquid burn down his throat.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Elena winces in pain as Katherine yanks her up by her hair and throws her against a corner. She covers her mouth to stifle a cry as she sees the two figures slumped motionless on the ground.

"You're weak," the vampire observes, shaking her head. "And pathetic. What do they see in you?"

"You're crazy," Elena chokes out.

Katherine looks her up and down. "Then, again, you do have my face." She smiles. "And my body. They _do_ have a weakness for it."

"What do you want?" Elena asks, disgusted. "Why did you come back here?"

Katherine's eyes narrow. "I'm cleaning up a mess. And… _other things_. You know, Elena, those vampires being out of the tomb was a real inconvenience. It sped things up. And I hate to be hurried." She chuckles. "But I suppose Damon's perseverance could only be denied for so long. His devotion to me is unparalleled… as is Stefan's."

"You compelled him," Elena says, erasing Katherine's smile. "It wasn't real."

The vampire yanks her from the corner and pushes her into the sink, points to their reflection in the window over it.

"Look at yourself!" she seethes, "And then look at _me_! Just who do you think he sees when he looks at you, when he touches you." Katherine grabs her by the back of the neck. "Face it, Elena. You're nothing but a replacement. A cheap one at that."

Elena tries to elbow herself free. "Go to hell."

"But don't worry," Katherine says with a vicious smirk. "I'm home now."

She laughs one final time and then smashes the human's head against the window, shattering the glass.

Elena slumps to the floor and Katherine walks slowly around the room, as if surveying her prey, pleased at her handywork.

She pulls a cell phone from her pocket and dials. "Come pick up my two pets," Katherine says into it, still circling. "As for John Gilbert…" She regards his corpse. "Burn him."

With that, Katherine clicks her phone shut and grabs her bag from the counter. She walks over to Damon, who is lying face-up on the floor. Katherine kneels beside him.

"Soon…" she says, caressing his temple.

Katherine regards him for a moment, gets up, swings her back over her shoulder, and walks out.


End file.
